Harried in Hillheim
Posted by: Jimmy (08/17/2019) * F-Rank Description In the village of Elventree, near the oppressed city of Hillheim, a recent string of strange occurrences has the locals on edge. Certain factions have gathered here on the borders of the forest to determine what is happening. Is this the machinations of Hillheim, or something more? Journals Hageta Palms (08/18/2019) Part 1 To the Record Keeper of the Blue Hoods: As is dictated by the record handlers of the Blue Hoods this journal letter is presented in regards to the rumors that we have been sent to investigate in the Hillheim region. Now that we have that out of the way, let me tell you what happened today. You’ll never believe it; I almost don’t and I was there. Our party was peacefully enjoying the countryside as we made our way north on the Moon Sea Ride, making small talk with locals, and learning all about the leprechauns showering people with gold and even about the undead armies that were apparently all around. I appreciate the mirth these people seem to enjoy and the breadth of their imaginations. However, we did hear of one rumor that seemed to hold a little more credence than the rest. Some passers-by told of non-humans being evicted from the city and that the only non-humans left within the gates were being held in slavery and forced to fight to the death as pit fighters. I couldn’t believe it; it sounded more goblin than human, but I have only anecdotes to base that upon and my fellow party members believed it rang true. After awhile of travelling like this, an old man hurriedly approached us, but something was not right. His form was disrupted and bloody. I knew right then that this was the fabled ‘death of thousand cuts.’ I had only read about this once, but it was not nearly as gruesome as I had imagined. Quickly dismissing the thought, I turned my attention to him and we heard as he voiced what was either a poem, a clue to his killers, or rather maybe a prophecy. We decided to investigate the old man’s poem as it spoke of something I had never heard of before. We spoke to some locals for directions and made our way toward a set of hills in the valley with a nearby farmstead. This farmstead was bigger than the entire temple of the Open Palm. It included a living structure, an animal keeping structure, an enclosure for the animals and so much space! As we approached the farmstead we noticed two female small ones, a dwarf and half-orc, going about their daily chores. I approached them first because I was bubbling over with excitement. I wanted to know what the old man spoke of. I asked them loudly as we approached “Excuse me small ones, where might I find a ‘dandelion?’” These small ones were gracious enough to share their knowledge of how to harvest and collect these foreign ‘dandelions’ and I found myself collecting specimens. I couldn’t believe it; out of all the books I’ve read, never have I come across something like this. While I gathered a sufficient amount, our party learned that we make small ones nervous, there is a pregnant goat and that the small ones’ “Ma” was located in the living structure where all noise was coming from. We decided to consult the adults and moved towards the living structure. When we walked in, I was shocked into silence. The entire place was filled with tiny ones. Ma carried a few and three other adults were caring for another few. In total, I counted no less than twelve small or tiny ones on this farm while we were here. This is by far the most small ones I’ve ever seen. Ma was so incredibly busy with tending to so many tiny ones that she convinced us to do chores for her in payment for information going forward about the other things I don’t know in the old man’s poem. We reluctantly accepted this agreement and promptly split up to take care of the chores. Austin, Erevan and I decided to try to make sense of the pregnant goat problem. We met another of Ma’s wards Verner, a sickly looking halfling, and he showed us the way to the animal keeping structure. However, as we entered, we knew something was not right. Verner alerted us that the goat had changed since this morning. The goat mother cried out from her labor and the rest of our party joined us at alert. I pulled out my lute and began to play one of my favorite tunes, a dwarven drinking song, hoping it would calm the poor creature. Flux delivered six kids with Amna’s help. The firstborn was almost full size as it was birthed, but they were all peculiar, like much this day. All of the kids born had blood red fur and after Amna examined them we learned they had a bit of infernal presence. We decided to enclose them in the animal keeping structure and guard them as we informed Ma of their nature. Her lackadaisical response, and her confirmation that the pregnant goat chore was complete, led me to the conclusion ‘Not my goat, not my problem.’ I couldn’t believe it; blood red goats were not a staple of any fable I had read. To complete our chores we also had to find another of Ma’s wards, Pynroth. We approached the same small ones we knew, the dandelion scholars, and inquired where their small friend Pynroth might be. After Flux showed them a trick where he gave them a gold piece and they told us not only where Pynroth was but what he looked like without deceiving us, we headed toward the forest to find the small one tiefling. At the forest edge we found a half-elf (who later told us he was Beralt, an Initiate of the Emerald Enclave) guarding Pynroth from a pack of angry wolves and instantly lept to their aid. Austin and I targeted the closest wolf, tactically firing from our crossbow and shortbow respectively and advancing in a screen. Just as I loosed and confirmed my shot, I see Flux dash past us, straight past Beralt and into the face of the pack. Twisting and turning, almost brought to the ground by the onslaught, the wolves got in only a glancing blow at Flux as he struck at them with booming ferocity. Suddenly, the alpha of the pack, at least four times as large as the other wolves attacked behind me. I turned and lunged with my spear, but the beast’s hide was too strong for my new weapon. Angrily, as always, I gave him the horns as Austin cleaved into him with his longsword. Amna kept a safe distance and methodically popped wolf after wolf while they harried Flux. Erevan’s fire flashed through the sky while his simple, but effective directions of “Stab him” inspired us all. After the last wolf was chased away by Flux, we discussed the local mishaps and wildlife changes with Beralt and informed him of the goats while he informed us he had been tracking the wolves we had just decimated. After some story trading we decided to deliver Pynroth back to Ma and be done with our chores. Amna carried Pynroth and I carried the over-stressed Austin piggy-back to the farmstead. As we approached we noticed the infernal goats were now in the enclosure outside of the animal keeping structure. Verner hastily retreated in our direction informing us that the goats were now hostile and that they had attacked him. I observed the firstborn start to scratch at the ground in preparation for a charge as I moved around the enclosure. Erevan immediately cast a spell on the largest, firstborn goat, now the size of a horse, causing him and his closest brother to fall into a deep sleep. I wasted no time jumping into the enclosure and striking out with my spear. I couldn’t believe it; I missed. I missed a baby, red goat. I was angry. I gave him the horns and that was one goat dealt with. Amna started talking to the goats in some language, attempting to make them move away I hypothesized. I was watching Flux dash off to the living structure to inform Ma that her goats were not domesticated when another of the little devils rammed me in the back of the knee and over I went. It’s been a long time since I fell over, but these little goats made it a challenge contest and they wanted me on their level. Three of the little devils challenged me at once while I was on the ground. While Erevan distracted one of the goats, getting it to roll on the ground, I stood up, shaken but not out, and stabbed forward with my spear, ending the first challenge. I channeled my ki into my hooves and jumped back, disengaging and giving myself some charge room if needed and most importantly I thought, putting myself back outside the enclosure. The goats charged at Amna and I trying to finish their challenges, slamming through the fences, but not bringing us down. Erevan spoke a word of healing and my head stopped ringing quite so loudly. I stabbed out with my spear again, barely missing a fatal blow, but I was challenged. I dropped my head and slammed my horn into the goat, spraying gore into the air and ending the second challenge. Amna tried to pop the goat that challenged her, but the goat hopped out of the path and directly into my arrow, again, narrowly missing a fatal blow. Flux charged back in a flurry of blades and bow helping Amna dispatch the last of the goats. I couldn’t believe it; red, devil goats have really hard heads. Ma and a whole litter of small ones gathered to discern what all the commotion was about. We informed her that the goats as well as the Pynroth situation had been dealt with. We were invited in for dinner, compensated 150g each for our troubles and promised again the information we had agreed upon. Thus concludes this entry for the record keeper. With best regards, Hageta Palms, F-Rank of the Blue Hoods Vennett Estariel (08/30/2019) Part 3 From the personal notes of Vennett Estariel, Luminous Knight of the Shimmering Court My second day as a Blue Hood, and my second job--this one far less innocent than the first. Entering the tavern to look for postings of an appropriate nature, I spotted my new acquaintance Dr. Henry Dunwich idling by the corkboard, as usual wafting back and forth like a leaf in the breeze while appearing totally disinterested in anything but the paper in front of him. I approached and asked what the job was, and he explained: a strange poem had been leading guildmembers to nefarious occurrences, two of which remained unsolved. I quickly looked around the bar, recruited three other low-ranked members, and we boarded the carriage that soon appeared for us. We arrived at a farm in the middle of rolling pasturelands, a scene which might have been quite pleasant if not for the remains of a herd of rothé which had been scattered hither and yon by something violent and deranged. Though the animals had met a grisly fate, the humans who had once tended them were nowhere to be seen. We entered the barn to find a trapdoor in the middle of the space, scuff marks leading up to it. I opened it and peered down: a long shaft punctuated with wooden rungs, descending past the range of my vision. In order to see its end, and as a courtesy to one partymember without nocturnal vision, I brought forth the innate radiance within a pebble and cast it into the void. This revealed the bottom of the shaft, similarly unremarkable but for one passage leading away from the landing. As I was preparing to descend, I heard a voice from outside the barn. I dismounted the ladder and exited to find an elven woman, who introduced herself as Isendra and noted that a scholar friend of hers had been studying the rothé at this farm before their communications ceased. She offered a small sum of gold for information about her friend’s fate, and while I find coin a crude estimation of wealth or value, it is sadly necessary to fund an adventuring lifestyle in the comfort to which I am accustomed. It would certainly improve the lives of many if the mortals of this plane possessed the aura-sight of celestials--then fortune and favor could be bestowed based upon the innate goodness of a being rather than its ability to accumulate uncommon metals. Econophilosophy aside, I agreed to help the woman in her search, and returned to the barn and my squadron. I descended the ladder, followed by the ever-loyal Dr. Dunwich and the others, to find a darkened hallway. I moved forward in Twilight’s Gleam position, shield at midguard and sword held waist-high, until the corridor turned to the left. Standing before us were six statues, paired off in two opposing lines: three elves and three demons, each pair adorned with a different motif. On the ground was a riddle--“You may pass by speaking the names of the three divided by three”--alongside a string of letters, clearly a cipher. In fact, it was one familiar to me from the games of cryptis I used to play with fledgling archons: a simple skip cipher, solved without terrible difficulty. It gave the names of the three pairs of statues, which I here redact in fear of this document falling into the wrong hands. I spoke the names aloud, and the statues knelt before me, as is mete and just. We strode onward and into a room bearing murals of The Abyss, a terrible place I have heard of in whispered tales. On the walls were nine apertures resembling gaping maws, magical darkness obscuring my vision of what lay inside. My first thought was to use the riddle on the floor of the statue hall, so I first spoke “the name of three divided by three,” saying “One” in a clear voice. Nothing. I then recruited Dr. Dunwich’s help and crawled into the aperture marked 1, hoping three divided by three was the key after all; the maw closed upon my legs and attempted to drain my vital essence, but my soul proved too strong for its magic and all it managed was to dry my skin and chap my lips a bit. Nothing a beeswax exfoliant cannot cure. After this, I kindly asked Varan, our druid with weak eyes, to hand me the enlightened pebble. I cupped it between my palms, plunging the room into darkness; without the light to cast shadows, my eyes picked out some dust beneath the portal marked redacted. Recruiting Henry and Varan again, I crawled through the mouth, this time emerging into a long hallway. I called for the others to join me. Proceeding down the hall, we came to an open room with a high ceiling supported by four pillars, with four vats of malodorous elixir bubbling in the corners and an ominous slab of purple stone in the center, supporting the chained body of some unfortunate who had been desecrated, his head removed and replaced with that of a rothé. Standing at the other end of the altar was an elf, doubtless Isendra’s erstwhile companion, laughing maniacally and raving about his creation. As he cackled and ranted, the four pillars glowed and began to flow like melting wax, producing four hideous malformed lumps of flesh that groaned and shifted as if in terrible pain. At the same time, from the cauldrons in the corners climbed four muscular beasts, their faces crushed flat as if by a vengeful palm--though at least they had faces. I knew what I had to do. The beast on the table had to be stopped, and clearly the elf was its creator and the source of the carnage aboveground. I strode forward, passing the four accursed blobs, and struck down the mad elf with one swing. To my dismay, none of the other abominations in the room seemed at all affected by the elf’s death. I tightened my grip on my sword and fell into Twirling Mote, my blade tracking the two nearest flesh-beasts as my companions fell into their own (frankly, quite lazy) combat stances and began the assault. We quickly realized that the blobs had little purpose but feeding the insensate hybrid beast on the altar. They posed no direct threat to us, instead simply walking towards the stone table and touching the creature chained to it before being absorbed into it in a puff of smoke and a flash of light. We thus had to split our attention between cutting them down--not a difficult task--and fending off the cauldron-spawn, who were significantly more violently-inclined (though still not terribly threatening). It is my great dismay that we did not act fast enough. Though we eventually turned to the thing on the altar and began dismembering it limb by limb, as soon as it had absorbed twelve of the amorphous horrors, it began to glow a deep, migraine-inducing purple-red. This lasted only a moment before it disappeared in a flash, replaced by a twelve-foot-tall demon with the head of a bull. Terror washed over me, and in that moment I saw my ever-so-brief time on this strange plane flash before my eyes. Surely this was the end, I thought, but the demon said a single guttural word and vanished without a trace. I can only hope it retreated to some deep hideaway where it will spend its days reading books about demonic cosmology, but I fear this land will not be so lucky. I must keep my senses and my blade sharp, for the next time I see that demon I am certain it will not flee so readily. We retreated to the portal room and took a brief respite. Thanks to the healing magic of the cleric I had recruited I was not truly in need of rest, but a few of my fellow Blue Hoods were looking ragged. Once we had tended to our needs, we exited the tunnel complex and headed to the location hinted at in the fifth stanza of the mysterious poem: a graveyard, as it turned out. As we approached, we noticed two men walking with two rothé among the graves. I approached and hailed them, asking their purpose their, and they informed me that they were the gravekeepers. I thought it a noble profession and told them as much before turning my attention to the poem, which mentioned a secret hidden beneath “night’s marble.” I inquired of the gravekeepers if there was a grave bearing the name Night, and they pointed me towards a mausoleum at the edge of the cemetery. I approached and opened my inner eye, attempting to see the presence of any evil nearby. The mausoleum looked neutral to my third eye, but I could sense the corruption of undeath from behind me. I whirled, and immediately saw the two gravekeepers and their animals, lit as if from within by a sickly grey light. Having known a rare few undead who were not innately evil--generally those afflicted with the curse against their wills--I decided to give the peasants the benefit of the doubt. I approached and inquired as to their living status. One pretended not to know what I meant, but before his ruse could go anywhere he unsheathed a dagger and made a pitiful attempt to stab me. You can imagine how it went after that. We made short work of the two human-shaped undead and their quadrupedal companions, though not without some injury on our part. I channeled a portion of my divine light into my own wounds, healing myself for most of the injury I had sustained; the others similarly expended small bits of magic. We entered the mausoleum, following a narrow hallway underground. Inside was a cavernous space, the flickering light of braziers illuminating a rough stone floor and a corridor with small rooms on either side, skeletons of the noble deceased lying in repose in their cubbies. A man in priest’s garb stood in the center of the corridor, shimmering with a dark and unnatural umbra. He noticed us as soon as we entered and immediately shouted over his shoulder, “Protect the braziers!” Dr. Dunwich and I made a cursory attempt at killing this man, but each time we hit, a strange haze seemed to lift from him and he would look at us with all-too-human eyes, begging us to stop. Trick or truth, it affected me more than I’d like to say, so after one slash with my sword I turned to knocking over the braziers. Henry took care of one, attracting the attention of two henchmen, so I sprinted for another, successfully knocking it over before turning to the center of the room. It seems my teammates had taken care of the other braziers, as I heard an otherworldly scream that our cleric later confirmed was from the shade leaving the poor host. After that it was a simple matter to clean up the remaining henchmen. Though I am sorrowful at having been unable to prevent that bull-headed demon from entering the world, I am glad I managed to stop whatever the former priest was planning. We returned to the guild and received our reward, which I promptly used to purchase a new set of armor as well as sundry supplies. I must become stronger and more valiant if I am to protect the fine people of this plane from all the evil that lurks here. Remember the tenets of your oath. Bear the light. Burn the wicked. Brighten the goodly.